16. Lumi
SIXTEEN
LUMI
Lumi sat across from her brother’s desk with her phone open to the anonymous email and her hands locked around a coffee she hadn’t touched. Nine forty-five. She’d come straight from Mika’s, still in yesterday’s jeans, her hair still held up by a chopstick she’d forgotten to remove.
Keanu read the fabricated sketches on his screen. The framed photo of Lumi’s first convention appearance watched from his credenza—her at twenty-two, signing Nightbloom Issue One with ink on her chin and a grin that hadn’t learned to be afraid yet.
His face didn’t move. His eyes did. Focused. Unblinking. The brother draining out and the lawyer flooding in.
“These are good.” He scrolled through the high-res scans—Sable’s silhouette, the cape, the mask, all rendered in Harlan’s line work, dated two years before Lumi had put pencil to paper. “Better than what he tried the first time.”
“How much better?”
“Enough to make a judge look twice.” He leaned back. His desk was organized with the ruthlessness of a man who controlled what he could because the world refused to cooperate. “Someone invested in these. A professional forger or a very talented assistant with access to the right tools.”
Lumi’s stomach dropped.
Tessa. Tessa has access to every tool in my studio.
She tucked the thought aside. Not ready to follow it yet.
“Last time—” Keanu’s voice tightened. His voice caught in the space between sentences. “Last time, I told you we had no chance. This time we fight. Every inch.”
He pulled a legal pad from his drawer. Started writing—dates, names, a framework taking shape under his pen with the speed of a man who’d been rehearsing this for years.
“I need everything. Every sketchbook. Every digital file with a timestamp. Every photograph of your studio with Nightbloom pages visible in the background. Every email with a date. We’re building a wall of evidence so high that whoever manufactured this can’t see over it.”
Lumi nodded. She’d been building that wall without knowing it—paranoia from Harlan teaching her to document everything, date everything, photograph her process. The wound becoming the weapon.
“And Keanu.”
He looked up.
“Whatever you find—wherever this leads—I’m not hiding from it.”
His pen stilled. He heard what she meant. The influences. The traces of another artist’s philosophy woven into Sable’s bones. If they dug deep enough, the questions would come. She’d answer them.
“We’ll handle it.” His voice was steady. Brother first, then lawyer. In that order.